


across the river, into the sea

by DivineProjectZero



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, M/M, Orpheus and Eurydice Myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-01-27 17:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineProjectZero/pseuds/DivineProjectZero
Summary: The truth is, you will pay the price whether you look back or not.





	across the river, into the sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starlithorizons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlithorizons/gifts), [hurricanesunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricanesunny/gifts).



> Self-betaed. All mistakes are mine. Constructive feedback is always welcome.
> 
> For Sunny and Starmy, who made this year's halloween an exciting and unforgettable experience for so many of us.
> 
> I've chosen not to use the Archive Warnings. Proceed at your own risk.

Michael is seventeen when the monster takes Jeremy.

There are bloodstains on the streets and screams filling the air. There are not as many voices in this town as there used to be.

The monster leaves a trail of claw marks and burning smoke that lasts miles, its hunger unending. It wails like a siren calling to a sailor, like a banshee heralding the loss of a loved one.  It does not look back, not even once.

Michael, who has neither sword nor shield, who is seventeen and foolish and so deeply in love that he is drowning in it, follows.

-

If this were a fairytale, the monster would dwell deep in a forest and keep its cursed prey high up a tower. If this were a fairytale, a hero would challenge the monster and slay it, freeing the land from its terrible reign. If this were a fairytale, all it would take is a kiss.

But this isn’t a fairytale.

-

The pursuit is long and hard but never once does Michael lose his way. The stench of death is enough to keep him on the right path.

“You can’t take back what is already gone,” a girl tells him. Her hair and eyes are dark as a moonless night, and her words are shooting stars, dying spots of hope in an endless black sky.

Michael knows this. He knows, but if he closes his eyes, he can still see the afterimages of bright light against the dark, can smell the whiff of wildflowers and cotton buried under the rotting stench, and the hope is a cold, hard thing in his chest. A stone that he cannot break.

“Still, I have to go,” he says. Because he is a fool. Because he is in love. Because he would follow the boy with blue eyes and starlit smile to the end of the world, if he must.

-

“You don’t love me,” Jeremy had once hissed, his eyes brimming with tears, his nails digging into Michael’s cheek.

“That’s not true.” Michael had been almost seventeen, foolish and so desperately in love that he would do anything to prove it. “I love you. I love you.”

Jeremy had closed his eyes, the tears spilling over. “Then prove it.”

-

The journey is long and hard but Michael has traveled worse paths. His white sneakers are stained red and black and his headphones are worn and battered from constant use. There are less screams these days, but the wails still echo across the land. Like a tiger’s roar, like a dying animal’s cry.

“If you go, you won’t come back,” a boy tells him. His hair and skin are crimson-stained forest fires, and his words are burning cinders, hot flashes of pain branding inside an empty chest.

Michael knows this. He knows, but if he closes his eyes, he can still feel warmth instead of a cold, hard stone in his chest, can hear his heart beating miles away in the chest of the boy he loves, the only home that he can ever have. A bond he cannot break.

“I made a promise,” Michael says. Because he is a fool. Because he is in love. Because he already followed Jeremy this far, and turning back was never an option.

-

What nobody told Michael was this: monsters are not born but made. They are created, shaped by the hands that hurt them. By the hands that love them.

-

The chase is long and hard but it eventually ends. High up by the seaside, Michael catches up with the monster that wails like a boy lost in the dark. Even when Michael announces his presence, it does not look back, not even once.

“What you love is no longer here,” the monster tells him. Its feet and hands are a mess of bloodstained claws and the rest of it is enshrouded in a crawling, living darkness that slithers like snakes. Its words are cold and hollow, reverberating in Michael’s bones.

Michael knows this. He knows, but if he closes his eyes, he can remember the promise he made against Jeremy’s tear-stained mouth. An oath he cannot break.

“I’m here to keep my word,” Michael says. Because in the end, this is the price he must pay.

The monster turns.

-

If this were a horror story, the monster would be too powerful, ripping apart the hero into bloody shreds. If this were a horror story, the hero’s demise would be the undoing of the monster, the saving of an innocent, a life for a life. If this were a horror story, there would be hope.

But this isn’t a horror story.

-

Michael is sixteen when the monster comes to life.

There is a bloodstain on the street and shouts filling the air. There are many voices in this town but the one he loves most is gone.

Jeremy leaves no trail because the path between life and death is not meant for the living to find, but Michael’s heart has only belonged to a single person in his life, and finding Jeremy is just as easy as finding his way home, even across a river not meant for mortals to cross twice.

Michael, who is sixteen and foolish and so madly in love that he just might go insane from it, follows.

-

They say you must travel the depths of the underworld with a song on your tongue, that you can take back what is gone if your music can move the ruler of the dead. They say you can regain what you lost as long as you never look back.

The truth is, a song is never enough. Love is not enough. What is lost cannot be regained, but it can be replaced.

The truth is, you will pay the price whether you look back or not.

-

_Remember:_   _Frankenstein is the man who made the monster._

-

“What have you done?” Jeremy screams at him. “What have you made me into?”

Michael doesn’t understand why Jeremy is so angry. You cannot take back what is gone, but Michael has done it anyway. Why is Jeremy not proud of him? “I brought you back,” he says. “You were gone, so I made you come back.”

“Didn’t you know,” Jeremy says, horrified, his hand gripping his own chest, “that sometimes you go and you’re not  _meant_  to come back?”

“Why are you not happy?” Michael asks.

Jeremy laughs, high and bitter, his eyes shining with something like hatred. His nails dig into his chest, drawing blood that’s too dark, too wrong. Some things are not meant to come back, but they do. That doesn’t mean they come back the same. That they come back  _right_. “You’ve turned me into a monster.”

-

_Remember: the real monster is Frankenstein._

-

Jeremy comes back with Michael’s heart beating in his chest, and Michael comes back with a cold, hard stone in his empty chest instead. It is the price he pays, and he does not regret it.

“You’re wrong,” Jeremy says. His tears are hot when they drip onto Michael’s skin. “You would regret it, if you still had your heart.”

“I love you,” Michael says, because it’s the only reason he has made this beautiful boy into something he didn’t ask to be. It’s the only reason Michael has become something he shouldn’t be.

“No you don’t,” Jeremy says with a sigh, his teeth too sharp against Michael’s throat. “Not anymore.”

-

What Michael didn’t know was this: the price for a life is never a song or a harrowing journey or a broken heart. There is only one price, and it must be paid in full.

-

Jeremy may carry Michael’s heart, but it is not enough to fill him. Michael’s love is deep and desperate and mad, enough for a man to drown in, but Jeremy is not a creature that drowns anymore. He is hungry, so terribly hungry, and Michael’s love is not enough to satisfy him. Jeremy knows, deep down, that the hunger only grows larger, that it only makes him more monstrous, and not even a hero or a kingdom or love can save him. Nothing can stop it. Nothing can make him what he used to be.

Except: there is one thing that will sate his hunger. One way to make the heart in his chest truly his.

The price for a life is always a life.

-

Jeremy can’t forgive Michael for making him into something he was never meant to be. For giving his heart up so easily. For not loving Jeremy anymore. Some days, Jeremy can barely stand to look at him.

Some days, he feels ready to claim the price that Michael owes him. To finally make the hunger go away. To be just a boy once more. Some days, Jeremy thinks he hates him.

-

Jeremy is almost seventeen when he starts coming apart at the seams. He was not built to be both monster and boy.

“If you love me,” Jeremy says, “promise me you’ll do this.”

He could ask for anything and Michael will give it to him, but what he wants is not something Michael can give.

What he wants is something Michael must  _take_.

“I don’t know if I can,” Michael says, and the heart in Jeremy’s chest thumps against his ribcage. It’s the only part of Jeremy that isn’t full of hunger, full of hate.

“Promise me,” Jeremy says, and the empty abyss inside him yawns open with a soundless scream, “you will take it  _back._ ”

Michael looks so lost, so empty. “Please don’t make me do this.”

If the heart in Jeremy’s chest were solely his, it would break. He hates Michael for doing this to him. For making the both of them into monsters. “You never gave me a choice, either.”

-

Jeremy is seventeen when he becomes more monster than boy, when the monster takes him and the hunger unhinges its jaws to devour everything in its way.

Michael hasn’t kept his promise.

And Jeremy hates him, wants to destroy him down to his bones, wants to hunt him down and make him  _pay_.

In the end, he doesn’t. In the end, he walks and walks and walks, away from Michael, far away. He devours every life in his path in the hopes that it will clear the debt, because the price must be paid in blood, but the only blood that will quench the thirst is Michael’s.

In the end, Jeremy loves Michael more than he hates him.

-

If this were a love story, Michael would take his heart back to prove his love. If this were a love story, Michael would pay the price for his love. If this were a love story, there would be a happy ending.

But this isn’t a love story.

-

_Are you sure?_

-

Jeremy turns and the monster who followed him says, “Let me pay the price.”

“No,” Jeremy hisses. He is no longer a boy but he remembers being one. He remembers being in love. The heart that isn’t his thuds weakly in his chest. “You said you’re here to keep your promise.”

Michael steps closer and Jeremy steps back. “I am, but I wanted you to prove it.”

“Prove what?”

“That you love me,” Michael says. He is no longer seventeen and no longer foolish. But he is still truly in love. “And now it’s my turn.”

He steps close and reaches into the dark, finds Jeremy’s curls and pulls his head close, fits his mouth against the one that tastes of copper and breathes into him. For a single, quiet moment, they are two boys kissing high above the waves crashing against the shore.

Michael presses his palm against Jeremy’s chest and asks, “Do you believe me?”

The hunger is overwhelming, but it drowns in the taste of Michael’s mouth, in love that is deep and desperate and mad and  _true_. Jeremy is not a creature that can drown, until he  _is_.

“I do,” Jeremy says, his words tasting of salt and water.

“Do you trust me?” Michael asks, pushing closer.

“Yes,” Jeremy sighs into Michael’s open mouth, and he holds Michael tight as they fall from the cliff to the waves below.

-

Days later, the fragments of headphones wash up on the beach. Nothing else of them is ever found.

-

_This is a story about boys who made monsters out of each other. Are you sure it isn’t a love story? Are you sure there is no happy ending?_

_Are you sure?_

**Author's Note:**

> writing tumblr: [divineprojectzero](http://divineprojectzero.tumblr.com)  
> main tumblr: [listentotheshityousay](http://listentotheshityousay.tumblr.com)  
> twitter: [@listento_yousay](http://twitter.com/listento_yousay)


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